


Some Thoughts on Types of Love

by areyouarealmonster



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, Multi, coldatom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 19:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7120189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyouarealmonster/pseuds/areyouarealmonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray Palmer falls in love at the drop of a hat. Leonard Snart can’t differentiate between trust and love, so they go hand in hand, for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Thoughts on Types of Love

Ray Palmer falls in love at the drop of a hat. A well timed smile, a turn of phrase, one flirt too many, and he’s in love. Romantic, platonic, it doesn’t matter, he’s got more than enough love to go around, to fill the world. Raymond immediately loves every single person on the team, because that’s who he is. When Kendra says no, initially, that she can’t do a relationship right now, it doesn’t even knock him down a peg. His love won’t sour, won’t fester, because it doesn’t matter if she’s kissing him or not, friendship is just as important to him as romance. 

Leonard Snart can’t differentiate between trust and love, so they go hand in hand, for him. If he trusts someone, he loves them. The only person he trusted growing up was his sister, and he loves her more than anything so trust, for him, is love. The first person he trusts on the Waverider, after Mick of course, is Jax. The kid is so stubborn, so kind, so brilliant and open that Len just wants to take him under his wing and never let anything bad happen to him. A little brother of sorts. He loves him and he hates every cut, every bruise, every pointed word that is slung at Jax, and takes his anger out where he can. 

Len trusts Sara a few weeks in. He sees himself in her, the monster lurking under the surface except that he thinks his is on top and hers is at her core. They both hate the monster, and so he adores her for the fact that he can be himself with her. He loves her as a “what if,” as a “maybe I could be happy.” As “maybe I can find peace.” She doesn’t really love him back, but it’s okay. He’s used to disappointment. It doesn’t make him love her any less. 

He doesn’t really trust Kendra and Carter. They keep themselves apart from him, and that’s okay. When you’ve been together for that long, he supposes, you push other people away, even if you don’t mean to. He can’t imagine being with someone for a year, let alone four thousand. He leaves them alone, and they leave him alone. He’ll protect them; they are his team after all, but he doesn’t trust them and therefore he doesn’t love them. 

Martin’s in the same boat as the lovebirds. He certainly wasn’t about to let Sara kill him, but that was more about Sara and Jax than it was about Stein. He trusts him, vaguely and begrudgingly, for Jax. Oh, yeah, he’ll shoot a man for him. But only when Stein was in the right. 

He definitely doesn’t trust Rip, not for a second. Sara does, he can see it in her eyes, and definitely he can see on her face when she yells at the captain for another misstep, another plan gone wrong. Snart can tell that Rip is careening along, grasping at hope, pulling them along with him down the rabbit hole. He doesn’t really mind, it’s certainly more interesting than robbing the Central City Museum…for the tenth time. But he doesn’t believe a word that comes out of the captain’s mouth, not for a second. It’s why he’s perfectly happy to cut and run when things seem to get to the point of no return. Rip got himself on this path, he can get himself out or die trying. 

Raymond, though. He fell in love with Raymond somewhere between Jax and Sara. He’s said he doesn’t trust a man with secrets, so how could he not trust a man who overshares every little thought he has, who wears his heart on his sleeve, with love so huge it could devour them all? How could he not love a man like that? 

And how could he not give his life for the team? For the succession of his teammates who were willing to die to save the rest. For Raymond, for Mick. Ah, Mick. Mick was a lot of firsts for Len: his first friend, his first love, his first experience with unrequited love. Now, well, he doesn't know the man Mick had become, but he loves him anyway. Especially when bits of pieces of the old Mick shine through. He wasn’t about to let either of them die for him. Nor would he let Sara anywhere near the lever. The kiss she gave him was choked with goodbyes, bitter because she didn’t love him, sweet because she cared for him. 

And Raymond, well, Ray would have done it. He would have died for all of them. He would throw himself in front of a bullet for every single member of his team. Multiple times, if need be. Now all he is left with is survivor’s guilt, and a wish he’d said goodbye. He hadn’t realized how much Snart had meant to him until the man was gone. He’d been so focused on Kendra, on his doomed love with someone who would never fully be his, that he’d missed Snart retreating. He hadn’t realized until it was too late that Snart had been flirting with him, that Len clammed up and pulled back. He’d been quiet when they were in the Old West, after that, but Ray hadn’t seen it. 

So they missed each other. The next time Ray sees Snart, in another life, in another timeline, Len doesn’t know him. He looks right past him, with that smirk on his face and barrels away, cold pouring off of him like steam. Ray realizes that Snart had warmed up to him, to them, before he died. He realizes that the Snart he knew and loved is lost forever, and he aches. But he falls in love, again and again and again. His love is not a beast, or a curse, and it’s what he has to give so he keeps giving it. 

And who knows? Maybe in another life, another timeline, they’ll sync up. Or maybe they won’t. And that’s okay, because soulmates? That’s only for Hawk gods and goddesses. Everyone else can love and lose and love again. 

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me in the stages of waking up, became a [tumblr post](http://queerleonardsnart.tumblr.com/post/145412928649/some-thoughts-on-types-of-love) and is now here.
> 
> This was also supposed to switch between Snart and Raymond but then Snart just fucking took it over because he's just like that.


End file.
